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Greetings.

First of, please note this most important piece of information. I-95 is more of a mess than usual, if you can imagine it. I drove by New Haven (and I use the word drive advisdedly; idled along would be a better description) a couple of weeks ago, and there's serious construction, rubber-necking, assorted fender-benders and general hoo-ha from about Stamford/Providence in to the campus. Please adjust your travel time accordingly. Whatever you think it might take, add an hour at least. The tournament will start with or without you, but we'd much rather it were with you. If you get there early you can get on line at the Shake Shack, which is where most of the students are going to be spending most of the weekend anyhow.

We will be debating both LD divisions on campus Friday, at Hillhouse school on Saturday, and back at the campus on Sunday. Shuttle information will be posted by the Yale folks.

On Friday, we will be using paper ballots. Ditto Saturday morning. A switch to e-ballots is possible, depending on our evaluation of Hillhouse's wireless. In any case, all rounds will be posted on tabroom.com, and all assignments will be blasted via tabroom.com, so everyone needs to have a connected account on—you guessed it—tabroom.com.

We will be using MJP in VLD. Prefs open tomorrow morning. In the unlikely event that you are still of the anti-MJP persuasion, or believe that it is the work of the devil, I direct you to this document: http://www.jimmenick.com/vault/ndca_mjp.pdf In practice, we will prioritize 1-1, 2-2, 3-3, 2-3, 1-2, 4-4, 5-5, working up from the down-2 rounds.

In the JVLD division, each debater can take up to 3 judge strikes. This is new, but, why not?

Conflicts are to be entered separately. We emphasize that conflicts at this tournament are meant to address the judges who love you too much, which might result in or be perceived as a conflict of interest. Please follow this document: http://www.debatecoaches.org/s/conflicts_teams-6e7k.pdf Judges should also follow these guidelines, blocking themselves against students they've worked with, snoggled, or whatever. Note that the abuse of conflicts—that is, using conflicts to gain more strikes against judges with whom you have no personal connection other than a desire not to be judged by them—is considered an infringement of the rules of the tournament and will be addressed with penalties up to and including disqualification. (Besides, in VLD you've already got about 8 or 9 strikes, not to mention a few dozen 4s and 5s. If this cannot accommodate the folks you do not wish to be judged by, you might consider joining the chess team.)

The long-term weather forecast looks peachy. Enjoy the rest of the week, get lots of rest, drink plenty of fluids, and we'll see you on Friday.